OT Little excerpt I'm LMA shortcomings for Spurs

[RonBrewer]

Take a glance at Aldridge's game log. Look at the games against the top teams in each conference.

11 points on 4-of-12 shooting, 5 rebounds and a -7 in 32 minutes in a loss at Oklahoma City.

13 points and 6 boards in each of the two wins over the Hawks, on 11-of-24 shooting combined.

13 points on 4-of-10 with 7 rebounds and a team-worst -15 in 34 minutes in a loss at Toronto.

6 points on 2-of-7 with 8 rebounds and a team-worst -7 in 29 minutes in the win over Cleveland.

5 points on 2-of-9 with 3 rebounds and a team-worst -20 in 25 against the Dubs.

Those are the numbers. Those are the facts. That works out to 10.2 points (on 37.0 percent shooting) and 5.8 rebounds in those six games. He's averaging 16.5 points (on 49.7 percent shooting) and 9.2 rebounds against everyone else. It should be noted that Aldridge has had strong showings against the Clippers and at Chicago, but I'm hardly the only one who's noticed LMA's shortcomings and tentativeness. Buck Harvey of the Express-News had a strong column on it Tuesday morning. For comparison's sake, David West hasn't lacked for competitiveness or aggression with his new team. Heck, neither has Jonathon Simmons for that matter. Neither have the pressure on them that Aldridge does of

 

[theprunetang]

Who?

 

[BBert]

TL/DR (Too LaMarCooch/Didn't Read)

 

[jlprk]

Buck Harvey of the Express-News had a strong column on it

Here is 3/4 of the short article.
---
OAKLAND -- "We almost got them," Gregg Popovich began. He was just warming up. "My opening comment here will be," he said, "I'm just glad my general manager wasn't in the locker room, because it might have gotten me fired." Told of that, R.C. Buford had his own line: "We'll see how Wednesday goes."

...Can he get LaMarcus Aldridge to rise for these challenges?..After Popovich went through his opening bit, however, he said something else. "It was like men and boys," he said, and then he defined the traits he cherishes. Toughness, aggressiveness.

Popovich didn't name anyone. But after Aldridge went through the first eight minutes of the game without anything other than two missed shots on the stat sheet -- no rebounds, no assists, no points, no steals, no blocks -- he followed that with a telling sequence. Late in the second quarter, during a Warriors' 8-0 run, Shaun Livingston took off toward the basket where Aldridge and Draymond Green stood. Green smartly blocked Aldridge from moving over to defend the rim...Maybe Aldridge never had the angle to get around him, but Aldridge didn't appear to push back, either. With that, Livingston was left with an uncontested dunk.

The Spurs hadn't lost this badly in four years. Then, in a game in Portland, Popovich rested his core. And that night, against a frontline that included Richard Jefferson and DeJuan Blair, Aldridge led the Blazers in scoring.

But Popovich will want more the longer they are together. Popovich will want Aldridge to step up, on a night such as Monday, and assume control when everything is falling apart.

One in the organization said recently you can feel David West's presence when he enters a game. There is none of that with Aldridge, and the contrast of Monday took that further. Green, flexing his arms in celebration, is all about passion...Aldridge has never been as animated, and he likely never will be. His body language also doesn't mean he lacks desire. He said Monday he felt he was "in a rush" because he liked the matchups he was in. "I was eager," he said. David Robinson once struggled with the same. His confusion sometimes froze him.

 

[jlprk]

As I've said for years against homers, Aldridge gets stats only in the parts of the game which don't matter. Either anytime in easy games, or in blowout garbage time, or in early minutes in tough games. Now that he dumped us, homers have lost loyalty to him and agree with me.

To the original poster: Keep your links to only the significant ones people don't know about, like the article I cited, and people won't think your post is too hard to digest. Also, there's already a thread going about our former players that this should be merged into.

 

[TBpup]

As I've said for years against homers, Aldridge gets stats only in the parts of the game which don't matter. Either anytime in easy games, or in blowout garbage time, or in early minutes in tough games. Now that he dumped us, homers have lost loyalty to him agree with me.

The 'homers' vilified me when I suggested trading him 2 1/2 years ago when I first heard from an EXTREMELY RELIABLE source that he really didn't want to be here and the family issues from Texas weren't helping the issue. You weren't alone.

 

[jlprk]

I know that I wasn't alone, just in the small minority. By family issues, do you mean his mother's cancer? That problem was over by 2 1/2 years ago.

 

[LuckyShot]

Here is 3/4 of the short article.
---
OAKLAND -- "We almost got them," Gregg Popovich began. He was just warming up. "My opening comment here will be," he said, "I'm just glad my general manager wasn't in the locker room, because it might have gotten me fired." Told of that, R.C. Buford had his own line: "We'll see how Wednesday goes."

...Can he get LaMarcus Aldridge to rise for these challenges?..After Popovich went through his opening bit, however, he said something else. "It was like men and boys," he said, and then he defined the traits he cherishes. Toughness, aggressiveness.

Popovich didn't name anyone. But after Aldridge went through the first eight minutes of the game without anything other than two missed shots on the stat sheet -- no rebounds, no assists, no points, no steals, no blocks -- he followed that with a telling sequence. Late in the second quarter, during a Warriors' 8-0 run, Shaun Livingston took off toward the basket where Aldridge and Draymond Green stood. Green smartly blocked Aldridge from moving over to defend the rim...Maybe Aldridge never had the angle to get around him, but Aldridge didn't appear to push back, either. With that, Livingston was left with an uncontested dunk.

The Spurs hadn't lost this badly in four years. Then, in a game in Portland, Popovich rested his core. And that night, against a frontline that included Richard Jefferson and DeJuan Blair, Aldridge led the Blazers in scoring.

But Popovich will want more the longer they are together. Popovich will want Aldridge to step up, on a night such as Monday, and assume control when everything is falling apart.

One in the organization said recently you can feel David West's presence when he enters a game. There is none of that with Aldridge, and the contrast of Monday took that further. Green, flexing his arms in celebration, is all about passion...Aldridge has never been as animated, and he likely never will be. His body language also doesn't mean he lacks desire. He said Monday he felt he was "in a rush" because he liked the matchups he was in. "I was eager," he said. David Robinson once struggled with the same. His confusion sometimes froze him.

Bahahahahahaha LaMarcus was butthurt for years here because we wanted him to play tougher in the paint and already local writers in San Antonio are noticing the same thing. I just know that this small part of this small article stuck out to LaMarcus and now this writer will forever be on his shit list.

 

[jlprk]

Ric Bucher wrote 2 years ago,
------
There's a difference between not trusting anyone and understanding that anyone—and anything—is capable of breaking your trust...Aldridge has come to terms with the fact that life, both in the NBA and in general, can be cruel and cutthroat and unpredictable..."He's come to understand that the NBA is a business," said one, "and that nothing is for certain."

A sensitive kid who viewed himself as, more than anything, a boy from Dallas, Texas—hence the TXBoy12 on the back of his shoes—Aldridge has a quiet gravity about him now. Before, there seemed to be a perpetual twinge of nervousness that he tried to mask with an easy laugh and smile.

I knew from an earlier story I wrote that he was scarred as a kid by an alcoholic father who drifted in and out of his life. Cross or disappoint Aldridge, and there was little chance of getting back into his good graces. He wouldn't make a big deal of it. He'd simply cut out the offender and keep going. He did that with his dad shortly after the Bulls made him the second pick of the 2006 draft and dealt him to the Blazers that night in a four-player deal. The last straw, he said, was when Dad showed up inebriated at his draft party.

Then came the trade rumors last summer. Who initiated them and how close they were to being consummated isn't clear, but a deal sending Aldridge to Chicago for Joakim Noah was discussed, several sources said...There was a time when the impact of being dangled would've made him angry, as when he thought former teammate Brandon Roy left him out of a team dinner on the road in Memphis. He sulked and avoided Roy for months without saying why.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ge-blazers-forward-says-he-has-a-new-mind-set

 

[Strenuus]

omg a team dinner.... seriously? Good riddance.

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

 

[jlprk]

https://twitter.com/aldridge_13

Recommend everyone read that, bottom to top. Good lines like, "Quitting Twitter has done wonders for my game. Going to stop bathing next."